Jaunty Jan & Fun Feb

Nine­teen things to do to add some fun to 2019, from the get-go!

1 Teach your chil­dren the jaunty Cape min­strel song “Jan­uary Fe­bru­ary March”… It’s a great way to learn the names of the months of the year. Watch out though – it is a real ear­worm! If you don’t know it, shame on you. Quickly go find it on Youtube. While you are busy with months of the year, also teach your chil­dren their birth date. 2 Work on those lan­guage skills and teach your chil­dren about al­lit­er­a­tion. Call your­self “mar­vel­lous mommy” and their dad “dy­namo daddy”. Once they get it, see if you can make whole sen­tences where ev­ery word starts with the same let­ter. Tough to tackle! (You see what we did there, right?) 3 Make sav­ing wa­ter a fam­ily af­fair. Check your last bill and aim to shave 10% off the next one. Get the chil­dren in­volved and ex­cited about us­ing as lit­tle as pos­si­ble and com­ing up with clever ways to save. Maybe chal­lenge an­other fam­ily of a sim­i­lar size to a wa­ter- sav­ing com­pe­ti­tion and com­pare your kilo­litres ev­ery month. (Capeto­ni­ans are al­ready mas­ters of this one…) 4 Get out of your braai rut and try out some new braai recipes. There’s still a lot of sum­mer left. Go to we­ber.co.za to find some in­ter­est­ing ideas. 5 Find out if your chil­dren’s nanny can swim and if she can’t, com­mit to find­ing and pay­ing for her to do adult swim­ming les­sons – pro­vided she wants to, of course. Swim­ming is an es­sen­tial life skill. 6 Start a new fam­ily tra­di­tion of telling jokes at the din­ner ta­ble. Each fam­ily mem­ber can get a turn. 7 Let your lit­tle ones page through your old photo al­bums and ask you ques­tions about when you were lit­tle. Tell them about things that are ex­actly the same and tell them about things that are com­pletely dif­fer­ent. They will be fas­ci­nated. 8 When last have you checked if your chil­dren are still in the cor­rect size car seat? Re­mem­ber, weight is the de­ter­min­ing fac­tor, not age. Weigh them, and check the specs of the seat. If they are nearly there, start shop­ping for a re­place­ment. Do­nate seats that have been out­grown to a cause like Wheel Well (wheel­well.co.za). 9 Do a bit of adult ad­min be­fore the year gets too busy. Read through all your in­sur­ance poli­cies and see if any­thing needs to change. Muster up the courage to call them to see if you can or­gan­ise a de­crease in pay­ments. Also check your driver’s li­cence in case it ex­pires this year. Check your car disc too and put a re­minder on your cal­en­der now to get the new one in good time to avoid penal­ties. 10 Make tomato sand­wiches. We pre­dict that toma­toes are go­ing to be the new avo! Here’s our recipe: Two thick slices of crusty sour­dough bread, but­ter, a lit­tle mayo, slices of juicy ripe tomato, pep­per, salt and some Ital­ian herbs. Snap a quick pic for In­sta­gram and you’re ready to eat. 11 Speak­ing of In­sta­gram… Do a so­cial me­dia clean- up. In short, un­fol­low any­one who doesn’t in­spire you. If a par­tic­u­lar ac­count just makes you feel “less than” delete it out of your life. It is ac­tu­ally very sim­ple. Also, make a pledge not to get em­broiled in ar­gu­ments in the com­ments, and move right on when you see other peo­ple ar­gu­ing. Life re­ally is just too short. 12 House­plants are mak­ing a dé­cor come­back. Spoil your­self and buy a gor­geous, fleshy De­li­cious Mon­ster or a fern. And if you re­ally want to be on trend, get a macramé hanger with that. 13 Give your child a foot mas­sage. If she likes it, give her a scalp mas­sage too. 14 Turn a wall or door in your house into a black­board with some black­board paint. All hard­ware stores stock it. It looks cool and your child will en­joy draw­ing on it. Plus, draw­ing with chalk on a black­board is ex­cel­lent for the de­vel­op­ment of those fine mo­tor skills. 15 When your tod­dler is driv­ing you nuts (we know it hap­pens) give him a roll of toi­let pa­per to play with. It doesn’t cost much and is very easy to clean up af­ter­wards. It should buy you at least 15 min­utes of peace. Kick back on the couch and watch him play. 16 Can’t af­ford a wendy­house? No prob­lem. Drape a huge big table­cloth or sheet over your kitchen ta­ble and al­low your child to play house un­der­neath it. 17 Set a day aside to mark all your child’s pos­ses­sions if she is go­ing to playschool for the first time this year. Not such a fun task, but you’ll be glad you did it. 18 Have you ever tried sprout­ing seeds? In warm weather they grow to eat­ing size in three days. Get a sprout­ing kit at your lo­cal health store or big phar­macy. Sprouts are de­li­cious and stuffed with all kinds of good­ness. 19 Raise a cul­ture vul­ture. This year de­cide to take your child to all the art gal­leries, mon­u­ments, mu­se­ums and the­atres in your area. Keep the vis­its short, though, and choose a time of day when you know your child is at her best, and at the first sign of trou­ble, make your get­away.